I've been contemplating where I go to follow up The Bridge......a bit of a problem, really! And I've come up with a concept of a design for a layout that includes the three identifiable bridges that surround the landscape at Saltash, just outside Plymouth.

Here's a 3D concept view of what I'm currently thinking of:

Saltash_Concept1.PNG (111.02 KiB) Viewed 1402 times

Left to right.....the Coombe viaduct, the Royal Albert bridge (both built by IKB), and the Tamar bridge. Initial idea is to have some form of return loop behind/under the layout surface, and for the road bridge to have moving traffic!

Interesting location there Doug. Quite a busy city landscape with lots of buildings. Looks amazing on Google Street view!I've had some thoughts about the possibility of looping the track (yellow) out to the edges like "The Bridge" and taking it underneath the inner edge of a curved "C" shaped layout. I've roughly sketched out my idea. This would save work on modelling lots of buildings and roads and help focus the eye on the visible track path over the Saltash bridges. It may also work with an "L" shaped layout.

One thing I didn't mention in my first post was the size of the layout....which is marked by the rectangular box that sticks up out of the base scenery. This rectangle is 2.6m x 1.6m....which is the same size as six of the aluminium tables I have for The Bridge put together to form a rectangle with a long thin hole in the middle. This would allow me to use a similar construction technique...and re-use the tables!!

After my first post, I worked out I could rotate the rectangular tube round so that the track disappeared off the edge of the layout in a similar way to Jim's idea of a "C" shaped layout. Spin the whole layout round so the taymar bridge is in front of the rail bridge....and it looks a lot simpler to run the rail round into a fiddle yard across the back of the layout:

Saltash_Concept2.PNG (116.77 KiB) Viewed 1393 times

The only issue I now have is that the roads running off each end of the road bridge are now at the front of the layout....and will need to disappear under an overhang...or something like that.

With the benefit of six months of taking The Bridge out to shows, I've revised my thoughts to reduce the layout down to a travel volume that will fit in the back of a hatchback.....reducing setup times and exhibitor costs. Here's the current layout plan shown in yet another 3D view.....

3DView_Poss_Final.JPG (43.5 KiB) Viewed 616 times

This makes the "viewable " area six feet wide and just over three feet deep with the rear corners angled off to form a roughly half-ellipse shape. There's also a one foot wide enclosure at each end hiding the run-arounds, etc.

Having spent a lot of time mulling over where I go now following the success of The Bridge.....and "Umming" and "Ahhing" over whether to have a go at Brunel's bridge at Saltash......I've finally come to a conclusion!

My next layout will be called "The Bridges at Saltash" and will be set current day and will feature both Brunel's Britannia bridge and the Tamar suspension bridge.

The Bridge presented me with a few challenges.....3D printing a large structure, creating a multi-board layout that was capable of being operated, transported, and assembled and dismantled by one person......and I think I managed to achieve all of these fairly well. This new layout will also present me with a few challenges that I know will cause me some great interest over the next few months.....

Firstly, there's the transport challenge. I'm aiming to get the layout in a hatchback for transport. This will reduce the cost and hassle of van hire.Secondly, the railway line is single track over the bridge with a very shallow point immediately at the West end splitting to two tracks in Saltash station. My challenge here is to build a point that looks the job!...and operates as part of automation....which runs neatly to....Thirdly, I want the layout to be fully automatic in its operation. I intend to have trains running in both directions over the bridge....and back and forth on a branch line running under the East side of the bridges.And finally..... the model will have the Tamar Bridge, which is a road bridge.......and a road bridge has vehicles on it. My challenge is for those vehicles to be moving! And for there to be four lanes of moving vehicles....and the fast lanes moving faster than the slow lanes!

I've already started doing some design and development work on the road bridge....but I'll not start documenting how I'm doing thins yet - just in case I change my mind! I have, though, decided on the basic layout positioning in relation to the features of the area. Here's a photo of the initial ground image plan, which is essentially based on the latest 3d image in the previous post above: